Composites comprising textiles have been prepared in the art to provide some combination of the properties of the textiles used in preparing the composite. For example, the art has provided composites of batts of fibers and a woven or knitted textile fabric support for use as filters. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,341 discloses a filter having a coarsely woven or knitted base with flocked fibers glued on the surface thereof and forming an angle of 30.degree. to 85.degree.. However, the glued fibers have little mechanical strength.
As another example, a tufted carpet made of an abrasion resistant fiber can be formed into a composite with a high friction but relatively low abrasion resistent non-woven backing. This composition provides a combination of long wear life pile face and anti-slip backing.
In another example U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,519 discloses a filter made by placing a batt of, principally, glass or mineral fibers on a woven or knitted underlayer and needling the batt to consolidate and tack it to the underlayer. In this case the amount of needling of the batt is necessarily very limited, since otherwise the underlayer would be destroyed during needling.
In yet a further example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,181,514 discloses a filter made by forming a batt of glass or metal fibers, and stitch-knitting through the batt by the known MALIMO technique to consolidate the batt. While this provides some rudimentary combination of a fibrous batt and a lightly knitted surface, the amount of knitting and batt consolidation is quite limited.
Thus, composites of the nature known in the prior art have functioned with the properties of the textiles forming the composite operating in, essentially, mutually independent manners. In the examples given above, the woven or knitted fabric of the filter of U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,341 contributes very little to the filtration properties of the glued fibers and the glued fibers contribute little to the strength properties of the composite. Likewise, the non-woven backing of the carpet contributes little to the wear properties of the carpet pile and the tufted contributes nothing to the anti-slip properties of the backing. Similarly, the lack of consolidation of the batts of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,070,519 and 4,181,514 prevents the batts from contributing significant strength to the composite and in the case of U.S. Pat. No. 4,181,514, the stitch-knitting, itself, provides only poor strength properties.
Thus, the properties of prior art composites have essentially resulted in no more than the properties which could be achieved by the individual textiles of the composite, operated in conjuction with each other, as opposed to being formed into a composite. The formation of such composites has been primarily for convenience purposes.
It would therefore be a significant advantage in the art to provide composites wherein the properties of the textiles forming the composite are at least additive, and indeed, even provides synergistic results. It would be a further advantage to the art to provide composites wherein high and low performance characteristics of one textile of the composite are matched with opposite high and low performance characteristics of another textile of a composite and wherein, the composite, as formed, allows these complimentary characteristics to produce a composite of better overall characteristics than the characteristics of the individual textiles forming the composite.